


No Crying in Baseball, No Hugging in Monster Hunting

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Whumptober 2019 [6]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Long-Term Relationship(s), Older Characters, Post-Canon, cobbclay, whumptober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 12:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20948576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: Barclay just stood there and stared, not at her but off into the middle distance, leaning all of his weight on the door frame like he was trying to cling to it.“You want me to let you give me a hug, then?” she asked, and his eyes snapped back to her.---They've had a long thirty years of monster hunting.  Barclay and Mama have a conversation.





	No Crying in Baseball, No Hugging in Monster Hunting

**Author's Note:**

> whumptober2019 prompt #7!! isolation

“So how are you doing?”

Mama looks up from the book on her lap to find Barclay leaning in her doorway, filling the entire space with his frame but doing his damnedest to make himself appear small. Curling a bit. That usually meant some kind of big talk was coming— Barclay hated those.

“With the FBI and all that, I mean. You were gone for two months.”

The clock on her nightstand announced 12:54 in the morning in glowing red letters. Her eyes ached. She didn’t tend to stay up this late when she wasn’t working.

“That’s a long ass time,” he carried on.

She was sore, tired. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She was so used to sleeping just enough to have the energy to work, and then working till the monsters came, and then sleeping it off again. Rinse and repeat.

No more monsters. No more refugees. Just Kepler.

Barclay was still talking. “— just haven’t really talked about what happened is all, and I could catch you up on the Lodge if you want, though Jake might want to tell you the stories himself. He missed you a hell of a lot, they all did, and I—“

“Barclay?”

“Yeah?”

“How are _you_ doin’?”

He narrowed his eyes a bit, suspicious of her. He said, “I’m fine. It was fine. I wasn’t the one in jail that whole time.”

“You were the one takin’ care of everybody though. That couldn’t have been easy. You handle it okay?”

The look on his face said he was almost insulted. Said he wanted to say _of course I did,_ but decided better than to. Instead he said, “You don’t have to take care of me, y’know,” which wasn’t a whole lot better.

Mama considered several responses to that, a few of them sarcastic, a few of them mean, both options that would result in some sort of argument or bickering. That would push this big talk off, but Barclay could get damned determined about these things, and she’d just find him lurking in her doorway again another night, starting all over. 

Rinse and repeat. 

That wasn’t what she wanted to say to him anyways. It wasn’t his fault she hated this vulnerability shit and was allergic to all this squishiness and _feelings_ and. Ugh. Wasn’t his fault she was as prickly as a porcupine and twice as inclined to shoot you. 

Instead she gritted her teeth and made herself be gentle. She said, “You think I don’t know that already?” and watched him soften a little. She said, “Barclay, I ain’t ever had to take care of you. Reckon you could carry the Lodge one handed, don’t even need my help in all of this.” 

He grinned at that, soft and tired. It was 12:56 a.m. “That’s not true,” he murmured. “You aren’t gonna let me check up on you, are you?” 

“I don’t need much checking up on,” she responded, and he grinned again, a little wider. 

“That’s not true either.” 

She laughed, just a simple puff of a thing, and she closed her book and set it aside on the night stand. She was too riled up to focus on the words, too tired to make herself get into it. Barclay just stood there and stared, not at her but off into the middle distance, leaning all of his weight on the door frame like he was trying to cling to it. 

“You want me to let you give me a hug, then?” she asked, and his eyes snapped back to her. 

“I wouldn’t mind it.” 

She sighed. She made more of a show than was absolutely necessary to get out of bed with her creaky old bones. It had been a long fifty-some-odd years. She was getting _old_. Perhaps the apocalypse came with good timing, she didn’t quite mind the idea of retirement. 

He pushed himself up and off the doorway, and as soon as she was close enough he gathered her into his arms. This time he was properly clinging. She wondered whose benefit this hug was for anyways as she sighed and wrapped her arms around him, set her chin on his shoulder, and breathed him in. 

She didn’t need to be held, didn’t need to be held up, propped up, held together-- any of it. But she couldn’t say she minded. There were few men she’d ever wanted to hold her, but Barclay was top of that short, short list. Something special about that boy. Bigfoot-- who would have figured? 

She wondered who they’d be-- the two of them, together-- with all of this said and done. They’d defined themselves around monster hunting-- Mama’s entire adult life, and her and Barclay’s whole relationship. It was the Lodge, and taking care of people, and watching the gate, and fighting the Big Bad, and keeping the town safe, and waiting for the end of the world. 

Well the Lodge was healthy and fine, the people moving on or not, but not really needing protecting anymore regardless. The gate was gone, the Big Bad eliminated, and the town proved more resilient and loyal than Mama could have ever imagined it being. The end of the world was over, and Mama didn’t know what life looked like on the other side. 

It looked like her and Barclay, hugging it out in the doorway of her bedroom at one in the morning, both of them bone tired and wide awake, still healing from injuries from their last big fight, still holding mental injuries tenderly in the back of their heads, scared of hurting. 

That probably wasn’t normal. They’d never been good at normal. Wasn’t much normal about a butch woman and a bigfoot learning to love in a fire fight. 

And that’s what they’d done, wasn’t it? That’s what they’d been doing this whole time. Maybe one day they’d finally talk about it. Maybe they wouldn’t. They’d never been good at those big conversations-- Barclay hated those.

“I spent two months in a too small room with no windows and no company,” she told him, answering his earlier question. “The whole time I was there I was wonderin’ what was goin’ on here, who else they’d gotten, and whether ya’ll were safe. I knew you could handle things, knew you didn’t need me, but--” 

“Of course we need you,” Barclay interrupted, squeezing a bit tighter for just a brief moment. “Amnesty is _your_ lodge.” 

“Our lodge.” 

“Yeah, but _you’re_ Mama.” 

“And without you we’d all starve.” 

He hummed at that, acquiescing, and rocked them back and forth just barely, like she was a small child. Mama scoffed at that. 

“No clean towels, either,” he agreed, and she pressed a smile against his neck before pushing him away and heading back towards her bed. 

Maybe he’d leave. Maybe he’d turn away. They’d shared a bed back in the early days, a long long time ago, when they were both touch starved and terrified, and this whole thing-- monster hunting, _them_\-- was shiny and new. She couldn’t remember when they’d stopped, or why. 

She said, “You know it’s damn cold out there tonight.” 

He froze, halfway out the door. “Damn cold,” he agreed. 

“And you bigfoots are really built for the elements, and all that. Just a man-shaped space heater, you are.” 

“Us bigfoots, huh? You spend time with a lot of us bigfoots?” 

“Hard to say, y’know they’re awful elusive.” 

He chuckled, cracked a smile, and shut the door before heading back into her room. He unbuttoned his jeans as he went, catching her eye and waiting for her nod before shucking them off, leaving him in boxers. Only heretics slept with their pants on. He stood on one foot to pull his socks off, had to catch his balance on the mattress. “Incredibly photogenic, though.” 

“That’s what they say. Take a few photos, and the world won’t shut up about ‘em.” 

She pulled the blankets back, and he tugged his flannel over his head-- always taking the things off like t-shirts and never unbuttoning them, which Mama had always thought was weird if not a little endearing-- before tossing it into a pile with his jeans on the floor. They’d be nicely folded someplace by mid-morning. He couldn’t stand to leave things like that for too long. 

He climbed into bed, and they gravitated towards each other. Barclay curled a bit on his side, fitting himself securely against her, locking in like puzzle pieces. She stayed on her back, as that was the most comfortable, but leaned into him more. Let him worm his arm under her pillow and her head, dropped her head against his chest and relaxed to the scent of the fabric softener in his t-shirt. He pulled the blankets up to their shoulders, shivering a little, and she ended up rolling to face him and wrapping her arm around his middle to bring them closer and press them flush together. 

“I missed you,” he said, and whether he was talking about _this _or the two months she’d been away was unclear. Didn’t matter, she figured. She was back either way. She wasn’t quite sure who she’d been before things broke bad, before she’d really got herself lost in the muck of it all, but she figured she’d be able to find her way back to it.

Or maybe not. Maybe there was no going back. But she couldn’t stay lost for long, with the Lodge and with Barclay. 

“Yeah, well,” she answered him. “You ain’t getting rid of me that easy.” Because she was still, after all, a bit allergic to all that squishy stuff.

**Author's Note:**

> as always with these, prompt is only briefly mentioned in the fic. can you find it? bonus points for you.


End file.
